This invention relates to a two-piece electrical connector for connecting a flat cable to a connection object and, in particular, to such a connector having metallic shells for electromagnetic shielding.
A two-piece electrical connector of the type described is used in, for example, notebook type computers. Such a two-piece electrical connector comprises a cable connector member mounted on a flat cable and a mating connector member mounted on a connection object such as a printed circuit board. The cable connector member is mated with the mating connector member to establish the connection between the flat cable and the printed circuit board.
As the flat cable, there are known a flexible flat cable (FFC), a flexible printed circuit (FPC) and the like. The flat cable generally comprises an insulator sheet or film having two laminated layers in which a plurality of signal conductors are embedded for transferring electric signals. A ground pattern is generally coated on at least one outer surface of the insulator film as an electro-magnetic shielding in order to suppress the electromagnetic interference generating noise.
One of the present joint inventors made an invention of such a two-piece connector described above together with a different joint inventor and filed a Japanese patent application on Feb. 21, 1996 (Application No. 33975/96) in the name of the same assignee (Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Limited) which was published with a laid open number JP-A-9 232039 on Sep. 5, 1997 which is later than the priority date (Mar. 31, 1997) of the present application.
The two-piece electrical connector proposed in the prior Japanese patent application (which will be referred to as a prior connector) has metallic shells mounted on the outer surface thereof for protecting the connector from the noise. A cable connector member in the prior connector is provided with a cable fixture for fixing an end of the flat cable to the cable connector member itself for establishing electrical and mechanical connection of the flat cable and the cable connector member. The cable fixture is rotatably mounted on a connector housing of the cable connector member. That is, when the cable fixture is positioned at a first position or an open position, the one end of the flat cable is loosely insertable in the cable connector member. When the cable fixture is angularly rotated to a second position or a fixing position, the one end of the flat cable is pressed onto contact terminal portions in the cable connector member by the cable fixture so that the flat cable is mechanically and electrically connected to the cable connector member. The cable connector has a metallic shell covering an outer surface of the connector housing and another metallic shell covering the cable fixture.
In the prior connector, two pieces of different metallic shells are required for the cable connector member and another different metallic shell is required to a mating connector. Thus, metallic shells of three different shapes must be prepared and assembled to the two different connector members. This results in a high cost, complicate assembling operation, and difficulty of management and quality control of parts.
Further, in the prior connector, the cable fixture is rotatably mounted on the connector housing. Therefore, the connector requires an increased mounting space in order to allow the rotation of the cable fixture. This results in difficulty of high density disposition of electric parts including the prior connector.